“I’m not used to wide, open spaces,” he said, his voice sounding apologetic. “Before, I lived in a small place. It was cramped, but it was mine, and it felt familiar and safe. Then my home burned down, and I found myself on the streets, and it was... too much. The vast sky, so much air that my lungs hurt trying to breathe it all in, the sun, the rain, the river. And somany new smells, so strange and foreign. I didn’t know what to do with all of it. It frightened me. The world is so big.”
He started hyperventilating as he spoke.
“I didn’t know how big the world was. Never had imagined it. To be in the middle of it, alone and exposed, people rubbing against me in the market, yelling at each other... I tried to find the narrower alleys, to stick close to the walls, huddle in corners at night, but there were rats, and it was never quiet. Dogs barking... Did you notice how dogs bark all the time, day and night? Men stumbling in the dark, drunk. It was only quiet before dawn, and I’d sleep a little before hunger woke me up, but I had no money. I had to steal to survive. A loaf of bread here, an apple there.
“Then one night, I found her. She was lying on the ground, naked from the waist up, arms and legs spread wide. Her eyes were open, glassy, staring at the sky. She was cut from her belly to her collarbone, the skin and muscle pulled apart to reveal her insides. Her ribs were cracked open. The edges were precise, as if whoever had done that to her had taken their time. And they’d also taken her heart, which was missing. There was blood everywhere. I got it on my boots, my coat, my hands when I reached over to close her eyes and cover her as best as I could with her torn dress.”
“My God,” Seraphina whispered. She wasn’t a believer, but she crossed herself, in case the dead woman had been.
“It struck me that if I turned myself in for the crime, they would lock me up, and I wouldn’t be out in the open anymore, alone in a world I didn’t understand. They’d give me a meal a day, at least, and they’d leave me be. I’d have a place to sleep, and I wouldn’t have to feel crushed by the sky, wouldn’t have to listen to the river rushing, and the people yelling, and dogs barking.”
He paused, breathing in and out for a minute to calm himself.
“Well, it turned out prison isn’t as quiet as I’d hoped, but I still get a few hours of peace. And I can’t see the sky unless I lift myself on my toes and crane my neck. The space is exactly as I need it. Small and all mine. I breathe better here than out there.”
“I don’t understand,” Seraphina murmured. “Your home burned down. You lived in a single room and never went out.”
“Yes.”
That didn’t clarify anything for her. She was glad he was finally opening up and talking about himself, but nothing he’d said so far made sense. The mystery of Rune wasn’t untangling as he spoke, it was deepening.
“I was starving on the streets,” he said. “Afraid of my own shadow. This is better.”
Seraphina couldn’t imagine Rune being afraid of his own shadow. Afraid of anything or anyone, really. He’d just stood up to three guards armed with clubs and bayonets. He wasn’t lying, though, that much she could tell. This was his truth, even if it sounded unreal and convoluted. Maybe he didn’t know how to express himself, and that made his story so confusing.
“I’m sorry you lost your home,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Was it... far from here?”
He thought for a few seconds. “I walked for two days. Avoided the main roads, tried to stay out of sight.”
“And you came... from the north?”
“From the south.”
A chill spread through Seraphina’s bones. It was the nervous energy leaving her body, taking the heat it had generated in her veins with it. It was also Rune’s revelation.
“A two-day walk on foot, through forest and fields if you avoided the roads, coming from the south,” she said. “That’s the High Harvester’s territory.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? The Harvester and his army control Munich and the lands extending south and west from the capital. You crossed the front line, and no one saw you, no one stopped you. How did you enter Ingolstadt? No one comes in or goes out of the city without being checked.”
“I noticed that. I stalked the gate for a while, then climbed over the wall after dark. The stones are old. Easy to find handholds.”
“You climbed over the wall?!” She said it louder than she intended. “Rune, I asked you to tell me anything you want, anything at all, as long as it’s the truth. No one can climb over the city wall.”
“I can...”
So, he wasn’t backing down. She remembered what Fischer had said in his high-pitched voice as blood was probably gushing from his nose.“How is he so strong?”
“Never mind. Did you see... any of it?”
“Any of what?”
“The war.”
